That was your takeaway from the photos I linked? LMAO. OK, keep your blinders on and pretend it was always cloudy skies, then. While you're right to say I've never lived in the Soviet Union, I had been there before the Iron Curtain fell. So I'm not talking about something with no knowledge. I did not visit as a tourist, either. I visited specifically to talk with local citizens as well as government officials. The local citizens with whom I spoke did have some hard times, of course; but they also were very happy with life in general terms. So, I am absolutely no expert, but I also am absolutely anything but oblivious.
Like
-CookieMonster666- , I actually visited behind the Iron Curtain several times before the thing was taken down. First time was in 1980, and then every other year until 1990. I didn't go to Russia, but Eastern Germany instead. And while I did visit as a tourist, it was visiting family friends (non-party members, in case anyone wonders, and there was definitely a difference between the opportunities available to party members and non-party members, and these people were definitely disadvantaged in society, despite being really friendly and intelligent people.) living in some really small town near both the Polish and Czech border.
I saw, and to some degree also experienced, the life of regular, avarage people there. The things that were available, the fashion, the good or nice things, as well as some of the less nice things. And
ErosAmor69 is pretty close in the game's representation of what I saw during those times. Not perfectly there, but, hey, it's a game, I wouldn't expect things to be exactly the same, just as I don't expect any movie which supposedly takes place in 1960 Alabama to be exactly correct.
This game absolutely managed to hit me with a sense of nostalgia. I'm not saying I want things to return to how they were back then, but the art style, the colors, the fashion, even the silly schemes and interactions, they're all very familiar. I'm still waiting for some joke somewhere along the way where the whole factory is in disaray because someone decides that undies should perhaps be made in a different size or color or something, after having made the exact same model and size for 8 years and some stores bursting out of their seams with overstock, while an influential partymember's wife complains about them not being available in a slightly bigger or smaller size.
